Knockbox Ethiopia Sidama Dembi Whole Bean

7oz / 200g Whole Bean
Notes: Raspberry, Rosemary, Mandarin Orange
Region: Sidama
Producer: Dembi
Varietal: Ethiopian Heirloom
Process: Slow Natural
Elevation: N/A
 
From Knockbox:
 
"Variety knowledge
As the birthplace of Arabica coffee, Ethiopia has thousands of wild coffee varieties, but all of them have not yet been discovered and identified. I believe it is very common for you to see "Heirloom" in the variety column on the packaging of Ethiopian coffee beans. In fact, Heirloom represents a mixture of bean species, which are often called Ethiopian native species (or ancient elite species), and does not refer to a single species. Names (such as Geisha, Bourbon, Castillo, SL28, etc.).
 
The reason for this classification can be attributed to the coffee production and marketing system in Egypt. In the past, small coffee farmers would send the harvested coffee cherries to the nearest processing plant, where they would be mixed, and then fermented, peeled, and beaten uniformly. Most of these processing plants operate in the form of cooperatives, including pulping, pectin washing, drying and other steps. In the past, small farmers who only knew how to cultivate could not identify the exact variety of each coffee tree, so for many years they only used Heirloom (referring to native species) as a title.
 
This practice did not change until 1970, after coffee bean anthracnose (CBD) ravaged African coffee-producing areas. In order to reduce the impact of CBD on Egypt's coffee production capacity and quality, the country's Jimma Agricultural Research Center (JARC) collected more than 600 local coffee varieties for research and testing one by one, and finally found more than 10 varieties with higher disease resistance. A single coffee variety with excellent flavor. Including the 74110, 74112 and 74158 we saw on the bean packaging today, where 74 refers to the year, and 110 and 112 are the variety numbers."